80 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



G-rass is frequently found in their stomachs, and it is not 

 unfrequent to find patches of turf scraped up by bears. 

 They will ascend glaciers ; I have seen their tracks as high 

 as 250 feet, and on more than one occasion have they been 

 seen and shot high up on the taluses of Franz Josef Land. 

 Dr Koettlitz found that the brains of bears varied consider- 

 ably in weight, there being a light-brained bear and a heavy- 

 brained bear, and that the skulls presented differences in 

 the prominence of their crests. He also found many cases 

 of broken bones which had become fused together again. 

 Caries of the teeth, cysts, fibrous tumour, exostosis, sali- 

 vary calculus in the parotid, arthritis deformans or osteo- 

 arthritis were noted by Dr Koettlitz. The liver of bear we 

 found poisonous. Two or three cubs were captured alive, 

 and these were kept alive for a time at Elmwood during the 

 winter of 1894-95 ; they were sent home by the "Wind- 

 ward" when she broke loose from the ice in 1895, but they 

 died before reaching Britain. The bear is wary and often 

 timid, although if hungry or at bay it becomes bold, and 

 is ready to attack ; it may also become bold if one attempts 

 to rob it of its food. It stalks its prey, creeping up to 

 it noiselessly from under cover of crushed-up hummocky 

 ice, as was shown in the case of Lieutenant Johansen, when 

 he was knocked down before either Dr Nansen or the two 

 dogs were aware of the fact. I have been similarly stalked, 

 and had it not been for my companions on shore, who had 

 seen the bear stealthily approaching me, I might, in a few 

 minutes, have felt the weight of its paw. 



2. Canis lagopus. 



The Fox is the second land mammal of the Franz Josef 

 Land Archipelago. Payer saw many foxes' tracks, and so 

 did our Expedition, but Leigh Smith and Nansen and 

 Johansen had more evidence of their existence. In the 

 case of Nansen they became quite troublesome, stealing 

 from his store of meat. This was not unlikely due to 

 the fact that both Payer and ourselves had a considerable 

 number of dogs. During the fifteen months I was in Franz 



